Track CloudCast Views in Google Analytics

How do I generate a Google Analytics ID?

First, you need a Google Analytics account. If you don’t already have one, register here.

Follow Google’s instructions on setting up a new property in Google Analytics. The website URL you need to enter is the URL of your CloudCast player.  It will look something like: https://videoplayer.telvue.com/player/_02qqWgLmQ33dPptCtruqqu2H7hKIH16

Copy/Paste that URL into your Google Analytics to generate a “Property ID”: a snippet of code that looks like UA-XXXXXXXX-X.

  1. Copy the Property ID code.
  2. Log in to connect.telvue.com.
  3. Go to Administration → VOD Players (To track views on your Roku app, go to Admin → Roku Apps.)
  4. Choose the VOD player you want to track, and open the Edit pane
  5. From the left Nav, select Player (or Roku App, for Roku)
  6. Right under the Name of that player, there is a field for Google Analytics Tracking Code
  7. Enter the code in that field, and Save

How to interpret Google Analytics?

Log in to Google Analytics to begin tracking video views. It takes about 24 hours for tracking information to propagate to Google Analytics. You will now be able to see some very granular and interesting stats, such as:

  1. Audience engagement, behavior
  2. Device and browser used
  3. Where your audience is located
  4. And a host of other fascinating detailed viewer data about your CloudCast player, and each video in it.

Google Analytics considers video views as “Events”. To display CloudCast viewer information:

  • From the left Nav in your Google Analytics dashboard, go to BEHAVIOR –> Events –> Overview.  This displays a graph of all events over time.

Choose the time interval

In the top right corner of the Google Analytics dashboard, set start and end date of the data to be displayed.

What videos are people watching?

Go to BEHAVIOR → Events → Overview.
At the bottom of this page, under “Top Events”:

  • Click on Event Category to display information in three categories: Video Plays, Seconds Played, and Percentage Played.
  • Click on Event Action to display videos by title.
  • Click on Event Label to display videos by viewing app (i.e., Roku or Web).

How many people are watching?

  • From the left Nav in your Google Analytics dashboard, go to BEHAVIOR → Events → Overview.
  • To isolate just the “Video Plays”, click on “Video Plays” link from the event category list, on the bottom right of this page.
  • To display videos by title, click on Event Action

How long are they watching?

1. Track by length of time watched

  • From BEHAVIOR → Events → Overview, click on “Seconds Played” link. This gives you the overall viewing times of all videos.
  • To sort by video title: Select Secondary Dimension → Select Behavior –> type Event Action in the search field, to add that column to the chart.
  • The “Avg. Value” column displays the average viewing time, in seconds, for that particular video.

2. Track by % of video watched (Note: this applies to VOD content only, not live streams)

  • From BEHAVIOR → Events → Overview, click on “Percentage Played” link.
  • To sort by video title: Select Secondary Dimension → Select Behavior –> type Event Action in the search field, to add that column to the chart.
  • The “Avg. Value” column displays the average percentage of that video that was watched.

Where is the audience?

From BEHAVIOR → Events → Overview:

  • Click “Event Action” under the “Top Events” section
  • Click the video/stream name in the table that appears on the right
  • In the page that follows, there’s a table at the bottom that has just a single row for the video name (the primary dimension). Change the primary dimension to “City” instead by clicking the small arrow next to “Event Action” link right above the table.
  • This shows a breakdown of the video plays by city, within the given time range selected.

What devices are the viewers using?

  • From the left Nav in your Google Analytics dashboard, go to AUDIENCE → Mobile → Overview. This displays a chart showing Desktop, Tablet, Mobile. How many sessions, how long, etc.
  • AUDIENCE → Technology → Browser & OS: displays browser use.

Who’s watching on Roku?

To filter for Roku views in Google Analytics:

  • Navigate to BEHAVIOR –> Events –> Overview
  • At the lower left of the Overview Tab, choose Event Label from the Top Events section
  • If there have been any Roku views, these will show up as “Roku App” under the Event Label
  • If your station is included in TelVue’s PEG.TV Roku channel as well, these additional views show up as “Roku PEG.TV App”

Export the Analytics report

  • Any Google Analytics report can be exported in multiple formats if needed.